


but baby you're mistaken

by Cancer



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Nesting, Other, Pining, abuse of italicts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 08:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19866181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cancer/pseuds/Cancer
Summary: The first time Crowley sets foot in the bookshop he freezes on the doorsteps, looks around with wide eyes, and immediately just knows. This is not long after the French revolution business, and while it’s been quite some centuries since he fell, he still remembers this. There is no way he would mistake this.-----or the nesting fic someone suggested on tumblr (kinda)





	but baby you're mistaken

**Author's Note:**

> here is the link for the prompt https://ariaste.tumblr.com/post/186015800684/youve-heard-of-wingfic-get-ready-for-the-new  
> i haven't seen any fics about nesting yet, but if you have please do send the links my way because they're probably a million times better than this. idk what this is, i was having a block and this came to me so i had to rush to write it and so it's kinda rushed... please someone write more nesting fics of quality *cries*

The first time Crowley sets foot in the bookshop he freezes on the doorsteps, looks around with wide eyes, and immediately just _knows._ This is not long after the French revolution business, and while it’s been quite some centuries since he fell, he still remembers this. There is no way he would mistake this.

Aziraphale is nesting.

Crowley has seen very few nests, and since it’s not something demons do (what with it being a “comfort” thing and hell being against all comfort and such), there’s a particular aura to an angel’s nest. It feels heady, for one thing, almost like lust feels on the belly; or like a good, thick glass of red wine. It feels loved, for another, like a heavy thing on the chest that makes you want to smile. Crowley doesn’t smile though.

There is also protectiveness. Aziraphale has opened a bookshop that doesn’t sell. A bookshop that was never meant to sell anything. He huffs and puffs every time someone’s trying to buy something, he closes on the middle of the day.

“In the years I’ve been opened,” he says proudly once, “I’ve only sold ten books total.” The store’s been opened for over twenty years by then.

So the angel is nesting, Crowley thinks. Big deal. Or not. Whatever. It doesn’t _concern_ him.

Except for the part where maybe it does. It does because angels only nest when they’re _in love_. Aziraphale has got himself someone he _loves_. Angels’ love is a matter of light and eternity and blahblahblah, the whole _thing._ This celestial _thing_ that will take him away and then what. And then Crowley will be alone—there will be no one on earth. There will be no lunch, or ice cream, or outdated fashion sense. There will be no arrangement! No arrangement, that’s the important bit. It would take Crowley forever to convince the… replacement to agree to the arrangement, that if he doesn’t get reported first. It’s too risky, he can’t have that.

He cannot destroy the nest either, he thinks bitterly. He can’t do that. Angels nest once. They love once and never again, and even if Aziraphale could ever forgive him for that, he would never be the same again—his eyes would become grey and dry, and his heart stone-like, and he may lose all his feathers; not even a demon, but like a mockery of everything an angel is supposed to be. A gargoyle, looming over the world without soul or sense.

Crowley decides, then, that he hasn’t seen anything. If what will keep the things as they are is for him to swallow his panic, then he will. He doesn’t know anything yet; it may be his imagination. He will go around and tempt people, and drink, and maybe go dancing and drink some more. He will dump himself over humanity and see them come up with ways to destroy themselves that no demon could have ever thought of. He will sleep. Sleep is good. Aziraphale can do as he pleases while Crowley sleeps and then he doesn’t have to think about it. Then he won’t know.

Sleep is the greatest thing.

When he receives the baby, Crowley wishes he had slept for longer.

For six thousand years, Crowley has _not thought_ about the _thing_. Not the Armageddon thing and not the angel and demon thing; and not the love thing, and absolutely not at all about the nest thing.

For six thousand years, Aziraphale hasn’t brought anyone up. (Crowley wants to think he would tell him, it would be necessary, he wants to think). Crowley’s been waiting. He looked at everyone around, he chased away men and women (and others, and other creatures too) who got too close. He drove by occasionally just to check. He stopped by without calling, clenching his teeth, waiting for someone to be _there_ , fitting in the space that was made for them. A space that doesn’t, would never, could never belong to Crowley.

For six thousand years he’s never dared to ask. Bravery is not something Crowley really does—he knows when he can win and he goes for it, and when he isn’t completely sure he can win and the odds are against him, then he retreats, because you cannot lose if you don’t fight a fight you know you cannot win. That’s him, the voice of reason. The voice that for six thousand years, give or take, has been chocking on the need to just _know._ To know who. To know when—when in that time did Aziraphale fall in love, when did it start. To know why; why did it have to be somebody else. Why did it have to _be_ at all. Why couldn’t Crowley be enough company, hasn’t Crowley been enough company? Why did he have to fall in love. To fall at all. (To fall again).

But when Armageddon is done – or not done – and Crowley takes Aziraphale home with him for the first time, he grabs himself the biggest bottle of wine, keeps his glasses on, drops himself on his chair while the angel looks around, and decides he cannot wait until the next end of the world.

Things will never be the same again anyway. It’s the two of them now, and the humans. And whoever else it is.

“Angel,” he says and waits for Aziraphale to turn to him. “I want to know, angel…”

“Know what, dear?”

Aziraphale doesn’t owe him anything. Crowley has no right to ask and Aziraphale could just tell him so. But among the little things Crowley _does_ know it’s that Aziraphale will tell him now, if he asks.

“Who is it for, angel. The nest.”

“Nest?”

“ _Your_ nest.”

Aziraphale looks confused and Crowley can’t look at him. He takes off his glasses and covers his face with his hands and reminds him again. “The bookshop, angel. You’ve been nesting in there for _centuries_. I know it’s burned down, and I’m sorry, I’m so really damn sorry, but I need to _know._ I need you to _tell me_. If you’re going to leave now, if your heart will turn to stone or something, if some other angel will come lift you off your feet and you will go off together—and I need to know, to know if… if I have to prepare myself. Alone. For the next time, when the ineffable plans are not in our favor, if you’re no longer going to be _here_. Who is the nest for, angel?”

Aziraphale is silent for a long time. So long, Crowley wants to look to make sure he’s still there, but he doesn’t think he could handle it if he isn’t, so he doesn’t look. He doesn’t lift his face when Aziraphale touches his hair and he will swear until the real end of times he isn’t trembling. Demons don’t tremble. Demons are creatures of the night and shadows, and whatever Aziraphale says, Crowley will survive it, just like he survived Satan.

“Crowley, my dear. Have you waited all this time to ask me?” Crowley nods because all fight to point out how that’s exactly what he just said has left him. “You know, Crowley… I don’t know how much you remember. About heaven. And angels.” Aziraphale hands are soft and warm, his perfect fingernails lightly scratching his scalp. “A nest is something special. There hasn’t been a nest since The Fall.”

Crowley looks up at that, startled, surprised. “Except yours. You have a nest. You made one.” Aziraphale isn’t looking at him, he’s looking out through the window, to the night lights, not the sky.

“Yes, it does seem like I did.” He says, as if he just realized that’s true. “I made a nest… for thousands of years nothing and we’ve had one all along, right under our noses. One that nobody saw but you.”

“…You didn’t know.” Crowley says, not a question but an incredulous remark, and the angel nods, a little smile on his face.

“I didn’t know. An angel only nests in the times of peace and prosperity, and you know we haven’t had much of that. It’s a gift, to the universe, from God. A sign that something is right. Something an angel can only share with the one God designs for them.”

“I know!” Crowley snaps. He doesn’t appreciate things being rubbed on his face, “I know that! Just tell me who it is, tell me when they’re coming, for earth’s sake, I don’t need to know how in love you are.”

“No, Crowley, I don’t think you do know. A nest is something an angel can only share with one person—a place where no one else but that person would ever get invited to come in.”

“Don’t be ridiculous angel, yours is a dammed _bookshop_ , everyone comes in.”

“Yes, dear. But I haven’t _invited_ anyone in except for you.”

Crowley freezes, again, like the day he saw the shop for the first time. His body goes cold and he can’t feel his legs, and he has the sudden urge to turn into a snake and disappear, but his face is hot and his cheeks hurt, and for a blissful second he forgets he’s fallen for anything other than to love Aziraphale.

“It’s for you, Crowley. I’ve been waiting for you.”


End file.
